Embarazada
by Caudex
Summary: HMC, vaguely fluffy, a wee bit of plottage. Now Complete!
1. Chapter 1

Alright, so let's see if I can't salvage a horrible 5 year old story, huh?

Thanks to:

**Calcifersgrl**, who messed with the original two part story.

**Iolanthe, **who was gracious enough to take on a betaless waif that pounded on her door, infected with passive voice disease and ignorant of the Rule of Three.

**DISCLAIMER **Not mine. Alas.

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The problem with sleep, Sophie decided for the third time that night, is that it isn't something more easily achieved through concentration. She should have been able to drift off easily. She was more than tired enough; the bed was warm and comfortable, and the sound of Howl's even breathing behind her was almost soothing. But she'd tossed and turned for more than two hours, and really, it was all Martha's fault.

A flu epidemic had swept through Market Chipping not so long ago. That in itself would have posed no difficulty if Michael hadn't decided to visit Martha anyway. Martha had rewarded his loyalty by giving the bug to him, too. He had, in turn, infected Howl two weeks ago, and now that they were recovered, Sophie felt it creeping up on her, as well. She'd had the light-headed, weak feeling—Michael's first symptom—for several days now, and this afternoon she'd developed a general ache that ran through her whole body. _That_ had topped Howl's own extremely long list of complaints. She was neither queasy nor feverish yet, having only a vague stomachache thus far, but Sophie knew that they weren't far behind.

It simply wasn't fair; she almost _never_ took ill, but when she did, she always had the worst case possible. Tomorrow, Sophie resolved ill-humoredly, before she felt too awful to move, she should pay Martha a visit to thank her. After all, it wasn't as though Martha didn't know what had happened the last time Sophie had been sick. She'd fallen asleep one day with a mild cough, and woken up in a hospital in Wales, attached to alarming beeping machines and countless needles, suffering some bizarre ailment of the lungs. Howl drank so much the night she woke that he was not allowed in the hospital until the next day, red eyed and glaring at everyone he saw, but mostly at her. She hoped that it wouldn't come to that again. Everything about hospitals made her nervous, and she wasn't interested in another '_if you're ill, for pity's sake _say _something_!_'_ speech. It had been no one's fault but her own for being caught in the rain, and she wasn't one to fuss over nothing. She would leave deathbed scenes over head colds to Howl.

Sophie had tried her best to forget about it and fall asleep, but her aching, weak-feeling body combined with her racing mind left her tossing and turning, to no avail. She had tried lying on her back. She had tried curling up on her side. She had lain on her stomach, wrapped herself around her pillow, and at one point even sprawled herself half on top of Howl, who snored softly through it all. Finally, Sophie spread-eagled face down on the bed.

This is hopeless." she mumbled into her pillow, "Martha, you are in _so_ much trouble."

"What in the world are you doing?" Howl whispered grumpily, only half awake. His hand slid up to rest heavily on her back.

Just what she needed, Sophie thought morosely, glaring into the dark with a faint sigh. The only thing worse than feeling sick, in her opinion, was having people fret over her the entire time. Howl didn't need to know until it was unavoidable.

"Sleeping." she snapped, and shifted again, turning onto her side away from him. She drew one leg up against her chest. This new position didn't feel any better than the previous ones had. She sighed again.

"Really." It wasn't a question. Howl woke up a bit more, and so did his wit. "That's odd. I assumed that you must have been dancing. Dancing with joy, perhaps, with the knowledge that if I don't sleep tonight, I will be tempted to make up for it by lying abed all day tomorrow." His tone grew long-suffering as he spoke. "By staying in bed, not only would I be keeping it warm for Her Highness' eventual return," he sniffed with what sounded far too much like growing hysteria, "But you would receive the added bonus of not having me underfoot. That's your plan, isn't it? That's all I am to you; a bothersome bedwarmer."

Sophie was no mood to indulge Howl's theatrics. He was quite obviously building up for another suitably miserable remark. If he green-slimed the bed, he was going out the window head first, regardless of which world it led to. Turning again to face him, she answered him as sweetly and sincerely as she could manage.

"Of course not! You're far more than that. You reach things on high shelves. You lift heavy things. And you help me when I run into a hard spell. But then," she added with her best imitation of his most charming smile, "Michael does all of that, too."

Sophie positioned herself flat on her back, shifting her pillow under her head with satisfaction while Howl digested her words.

Then she suddenly found herself pulled halfway across the bed, imprisoned in a stubborn grip. She came to a stop face-to-face with a rather annoyed looking Howl. She scowled up at him and set about freeing herself. He pulled her back to him, threaded one arm around her waist, the other over her arms, and leaned down, his forehead resting against hers.

"Mari used to do this, too, you know." he said pleasantly in the barest of whispers. "She'd stay awake so long past her bedtime that she was too tired to sleep, so she kept everyone else awake, instead. She was about three, then. She doesn't do that anymore, of course. Mari is, after all, six years old, almost seven. She _knows_ better now. Maybe you two should talk. You might learn something."

Sophie snorted at this absurdity. The enforced stillness was causing her legs to cramp up terribly, making her even more cross than before. She struggled until his hold finally loosened enough for escape, and buried herself in the covers on the other side of the bed, as far away as she could get.

"If I took comportment lessons from Mari, I'd still be biting people who annoyed me." Sophie snapped, her voice muffled by the covers over her head. Even through the layers of blankets separating them, she thought that she could hear his teeth grinding. Good. A fight seemed to be just what she had needed. It was taking her mind off of the sleep that she wasn't getting.

"It's far too late for this," Howl informed the air over her head, "Or should I say early? Sophie, just choose a spot, stop fidgeting, and go to sleep. As you may have chosen to forget, I have to get up at the _crack_ of _dawn_ tomorrow, build a divination spell, go to the palace, and demonstrate to the King, _again_, that since Strangia is too far away for the spell to reveal anything of consequence, it's utterly useless. Then, I have to explain why it's not my fault. _Then_, I get to spend the rest of the day explaining it a hundred times over to his advisors." He sighed loudly. "While that may be your idea of fun, _coch_, it is certainly not mine. I don't feel like doing it on ten minutes of sleep, thank you very much. Trust my luck to get myself appointed Royal Wizard just as a war breaks out." He paused long enough to yawn before adding, obviously as an afterthought, "Why are you thrashing about so much, anyway? Is something wrong?"

Trust him, Sophie thought, to ask the pertinent question after arguing for ten minutes first. It was too bad that he wasn't going to get an answer. Sophie decided to do a bit of slithering herself, so she focused on the least relevant point of his tirade.

"Don't _call_ me that! It isn't true!" _Coch_ was the Welsh word for red, in reference to her red-gold hair, which Howl refused to see as any color but ginger, or, when he was feeling particularly put-upon, red. He only used it when he wanted to annoy her, and it usually worked. Still, Sophie felt just the tiniest bit guilty. She had forgotten all about his appointment, and she really hadn't meant to wake him.

Howl must have sensed her relenting, because he was suddenly right behind her, tugging blankets aside and pulling her over until she was facing him again. This time, she allowed it. He was grinning now in such a way that meant that he was feeling pleased with himself.

"Sophie…" his voice teasing now, "I would have taken you dancing if you'd asked, you know." She stared at him blankly. "So that you wouldn't have to do it in bed," he explained, and then added, "And your hair _is_ red. I've seen it often enough to know, haven't I?

"Hmmph." Honestly! She'd known that 'Happily Ever After' wouldn't always be easy, but if the man was_ this_ difficult after only two years of marriage, Sophie didn't see how they'd survive to see fifty. Her legs cramped again, this time accompanied by a dull wave of pain shooting up her back and down again, which reminded her of why she was in this situation in the first place.

"Do go to sleep." she said crossly.

"As you wish." All signs of injury had immediately left Howl's voice once it was clear that she was conceding. "Good night." She felt him kiss the top of her head. When Sophie looked up at him a scant minute later, his eyes were closed and he was already asleep again. His arms, however, had not yet loosened enough for her to move. She resolved to wait until they did, then go downstairs and sleep in the chair. _It_ didn't care if she thrashed. Until then, she threw a leg over Howl, curled herself up against him and waited. Slowly, the heat he gave off made her drowsy. She dozed for a while, but just as she was about to fall asleep properly, her stomach lurched, not dangerously, but too much to ignore.

Sophie groaned and eased out of Howl's arms. She pushed herself out of bed and, seizing her shawl off of a peg on the door and pulling it around herself, shivering. Even the warmest shawl was no comparison to another body on a cold autumn night. She stepped out onto the landing and started down the stairs. The third step squeaked dismally as she stepped on it, unnaturally loud in the stillness of the castle. It had never seemed that loud before.

"Shh!" she scolded, "You don't want to wake everyone up, do you?" She tested the step again, satisfied when it went obligingly silent.

The darkened room lit briefly as Calcifer flickered up to regard her sleepily for a moment before settling down again without a word.

"Botheration!" She had been hoping for the fire demon's company to distract her until she fell asleep. Now that she was fully awake, however, all of her earlier symptoms had vanished, leaving her with a light-headed, distant feeling that came upon her whenever she was standing. It was better than nausea though, so Sophie remained upright, pacing aimlessly around the room. Actually, she thought a bit vaguely, being so fuzzy-headed and seeing things so strangely was rather like dreaming. So this was almost as good as sleep. After spending the better part of an hour occupied with such non-thoughts, Sophie flung herself into the chair, and spent more time getting comfortable. When exhaustion was at last more pressing than her symptoms, she drifted off, her legs flung over the low back of the chair and her head hanging just off of the seat.

It seemed she had only closed her eyes for a few minutes before she registered heat and light on her face. This made no sense, as the chair was not in a position to receive sunlight, no matter what the time of day. She cracked one eye open, and stared blearily at an upside down, or rather, right side up, Calcifer.

"It's about time!" he fizzed impatiently, turning until he was upside down as well, hovering an inch from her nose, "I've been waiting for ages. You look ridiculous like that, you know. What are you doing down here?"

"You don't have anything better to do then float about watching me sleep?" she asked sourly, glowering at him until her eyes crossed. Now that she had successfully fallen asleep once, she had no interest in speaking with anyone or anything until morning, which, judging from the lack of light from the window, it most decidedly was _not_.

Calcifer ignored her with as much skill as Howl did.

"I don't see how the two of you can argue when you're asleep. That's why you're here, right? But then, Howl is usually the one who ends up in the chair. Or—" He backed away a bit, and gave Sophie the penetrating, all-knowing fire demon look that never failed to annoy her. After a very thorough once-over, he began to cackle with smug laughter.

"That's it! You're sick, aren't you? I see it now."

Sophie righted herself in the chair with all of the dignity she could muster.

"I should remind you that I can touch you without being burned. If you know what's good for you, you'll behave yourself, or I'll spell you to a candle for a day. I can't help having the flu."

"Oh, but you can." Calcifer floated close again, ignoring her threats. "There are such things as healing spells, you know. It'd be a easy to cure yourself. It's not a cold, after all."

Calcifer was crackling with the same anticipation as when he had persuaded her to enter a bargain with him the day they'd met. Sophie knew that there must be something in this for him, though she couldn't imagine what.

"It is always safest to allow an illness to run its course; use magic only as a last resort." She recited primly from one of her books, just to aggravate him. "Besides, if a cure were possible, Michael would have used it." Howl wouldn't have. As miserable as he'd been, Sophie was certain that he'd enjoyed being bed-ridden.

"Howl has always been too busy with other things to learn much healing magic. And Michael tried to learn; he has no talent for it. But _you _could do it. And is it _really_ worth all of that suffering, just to be safe?" he wheedled, "You take risks all the time."

Put that way, Sophie really couldn't see the harm. Even if Calcifer _was_ exploiting her somehow, she'd get something out of it. And she probably _could_ do it—using a permanent spell was only a small step above talking herself into feeling well temporarily, and she'd done that often enough. She decided to consider it, which left only one problem.

"I don't know how—"

Calcifer whirled about and made for the bookshelf over the sink, hovering there as he studied the titles.

"This one explains how, and this one, and this one." he announced gleefully. Sophie was reluctant to leave the chair even briefly, and when she finally did, her knees wobbled. She collected the texts in question and returned to her place, collapsing into the chair gratefully as she cracked open the first. Calcifer floated over her shoulder, providing light and driving away the chill in the room. She discovered that she also needed a diagram of internal human anatomy found in another book, so she fetched that as well, and balanced that on her knee for reference, taking notes as she read.

The spell was actually quite fascinating. Early on in her magical education, Sophie had discovered that she preferred magical theory over practical application. She liked knowing how and why spells worked, on paper, in much the same way that she had enjoyed studying from books in school. The only structured spell work that she did was meant to prove to Howl that she was actually learning something. Supposedly, there were few spells that were beyond her, if she took the time to learn the procedure correctly. She rarely did so, which usually resulted in explosions of both spells and tempers. This particular spell was comprised of mostly gesture, with some speech, all directed inward. Interesting though it was, the words and pictures eventually began to blur, despite all of Sophie's commands for her eyes to clear.

"This doesn't look very hard." she decided aloud, "I think I'll try it." Rather than letting the books drop, she set them down carefully, remembering her father's admonitions on the proper handling of books. Then, ignoring Calcifer entirely, she turned herself back over the chair in hopes that it was still a position conducive to sleep, and allowed herself to drift off again.

She snapped awake again when she heard something fall. Sophie opened her eyes and watched Howl move towards the bathroom, stumbling over stools as he went, ignoring the one that he'd knocked over. Gradually, it occurred to her that it wasn't 'the crack of dawn' yet. It was most likely, she realized with a small laugh, about two hours before then.

Howl heard her, and came to the chair to regard her odd position. "What's so funny?"

She snorted. "It's ridiculous. You're depriving yourself of sleep for the sake of your face." They'd had this discussion before, and his answer was invariably the same.

"My face has to last me a lifetime." He looked her up and down again, or rather, down and up. "That looks incredibly uncomfortable."

Sophie couldn't rightly say whether it was or not. She couldn't feel her legs or her shoulders just then. Howl reached down abruptly, and the blood rushed from her head. Once she was lying sideways across the chair, he resumed his previous course, whistling softly. The bathroom door clicked shut and Sophie was left to rub feeling back into her legs and try to get a bit more sleep.

When she stirred again, the room was a little brighter, and the bathroom door was still closed. Somehow, she felt no more rested now than she had before she slept. Surprisingly, Calcifer was still asleep despite the noise of early risers, and just as surprisingly, Sophie was hungry. She debated the wisdom of eating when it was possible that she'd just be sick afterwards. But she didn't feel ill just then, and it would be best to eat while she was still able. She rose out of the chair and stretched, every joint cracking, and set to work.

"Not too much… Just some toast, I think, and maybe an egg." she murmured, bemused when her voice came back to her ears as though over a great distance.

"It's a bit like being inside a glass box, and having everything around you seem muted." she remarked to the cupboard as she rummaged about inside it. "But I feel much better now than I did last night. At night, I think, when there's nothing to distract you, everything seems worse."

Armed with the frying pan, an egg and a loaf of bread, Sophie headed for the fireplace. If she had to be awake this early, then so did Calcifer. He'd woken _her_ up, after all. Sophie braced herself for all manner of mocking remarks. He had spent a great deal of time making fun of his ailing castlemates, and Sophie didn't even have the gratification of knowing that he'd get sick too. Fire demons didn't appear to suffer the maladies of humans. She knelt before the hearth, laid out the bread, and carefully set the egg on the flagstones.

She took up a log and was reaching out to prod Calcifer awake when a weight descended suddenly upon her shoulder, coupled with a faint waft of lavender. Before her sleep-deprived mind could put together what this might mean, Sophie whirled around, heedless of the pan she held. Howl must have seen what was coming; he flung up one hand in self defense. He caught the edge of the pan, but it was heavy iron, and Sophie had swung hard. He managed to soften the blow, but the pan still connected with a solid sounding _thunk_. Howl yelped and straightened in a hurry, clutching his head with a grimace.

"Oh!" Sophie tried for something more coherent, but it wouldn't come. So she tugged on his hand, instead, until he knelt and let her check for permanent damage. For a moment, she thought that the grate lit up a bit, but when she looked, there was no sign of Calcifer, which was just as well. He had enough to tease her about without witnessing this. She sifted her fingers through Howl's hair carefully, searching for any obvious injury.

"I just finished arranging my hair" he grumbled, but he continued to hold still. Sophie snorted.

"All you did was mess about with it until it looked like you didn't do anything at all." She found the spot that she'd hit. The skin didn't even appear to be broken. "I had to make sure I didn't crack your head open." she added, "It's too early for me to mop the floor." Satisfied, she sat back and indicated that he could rise. He didn't move.

"Sophie," Howl sounded confused, which was unusual, and wounded, which was not. "Are you angry with me?"

"I don't believe so. Should I be?" Conversation was starting to break her out of the hazy state she'd been in, and this time she was certain that she saw a flicker out of the corner of her eye. Botheration! The fire demon had a sense for impending drama which rivaled Lettie's. It likely came of living with Howl for so long.

"I'm beginning to wonder. First you abandon me in the middle of the night without a word…" he scowled and added reproachfully, "I thought that you'd run off to Porthaven again."

"Honestly!" she bent to retrieve the maltreated frying pan. "That was years ago. We weren't even married!"

"You left without telling anyone! What was I supposed to think?"

Sophie glared at him. "Well, I certainly wasn't going to tell _you_. You were the reason I left!"

And now," Howl continued as though she hadn't spoken, "You've seen fit to abuse me with cookware. I was certain that I'd committed some grievous sin against you. Were you making breakfast? I'd like some if you are." He neatly turned the subject before she had a chance to defend herself, or question him further. If he _had_ done something, he only sounded remorseful at the possibility of being caught.

At least, Sophie thought wryly, if he was hungry, he probably wasn't concussed.

"I'll need some more eggs, then." Sophie slammed the pan down over Calcifer's smirking face and spoke as much to him as to Howl, to rid them both of any other foolish notions. "I just couldn't sleep, so I came down here. And you surprised me. I wasn't listening for you. Perhaps," she added in a near shout as he startled her again, three eggs in hand, "If you _walked more_ and _slithered less_, we wouldn't have this problem!"

Howl stared back at her, eyes wide with innocent surprise. "We have a problem?" Sophie scowled for all she was worth.

"We probably have several hundred." she muttered, cracking the eggs with a fierce rap on the pan.

Breakfast was over, three arguments begun and resolved, and the dishes were soaking before Sophie realized that Michael hadn't been down.

"Michael isn't helping you today?"

Now in the second half of his apprenticeship, Michael had begun taking on more spellwork for himself, as well as accompanying Howl to the palace. Howl claimed that this was to learn the formalities which were as much a part of the business as the spells. Most often, Howl just used him as a way to get out of paperwork.

Howl smirked and gestured towards the door.

"You must've missed him. I gave him a day off; he's been gone for ages. He's probably visiting your sister, early as it is. Why he would choose a girl over sleep, I don't know. Very strange."

Sophie frowned at him dourly, brandishing the pan. Utterly ignoring the implied warning, he crossed the space between them in three large steps and titled her chin up for a quick kiss, which made it rather difficult for her to stay annoyed with him. She hated it when he did that.

"You ought to go back to sleep." he said seriously. "I didn't mean to wake you so early, or frighten you."

"I can't go back to sleep. I have too much work to do." she informed him, "And you'd have thought it was funny if I hadn't hit you. I don't suppose you bothered to make the bed?"

Howl smiled his very sunniest over his shoulder, which told her that he hadn't, as he opened the door to the yard.

"I think that I'll work on the spell out here and avoid being assaulted again, if you don't mind. I should out of your way completely in a few hours." And with a soft click, the door fell shut.

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Believe it or not, this chapter lost 300 words in the last revision. SO wordy. Onward!


	2. Chapter 2

There are places here that might be different from what you remember. This underwent heavy editing, cos every time I opened this story and compared these ancient chapters to my new ones, I cried.

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"Well," Calcifer said into the silence, "That was certainly an interesting sight to wake up to."

"Oh, be quiet!" Sophie snapped as she stalked to the chair to collect her books. "You don't get to complain. Saying that you woke to something implies that you sleeping, and I did precious little of _that_ last night!" She knew that she sounded petulant and rather Howl-like, but she thought that she was entitled. She was rapidly developing a headache, and chills were running up and down her spine. She arranged her things within easy reach on the workbench. "Come make sure that I've gotten everything right." Calcifer leapt out of the grate, glanced at the underlined bits in each volume, and barely looked at her notes.

"That looks like everything." he said, bobbing back to the grate without another word to finish his log. Sophie decided that he wasn't helpful at all, and finished her preparations by herself.

The idea seemed to be that one could look into their body, as though skin was transparent, and then use magic to repair damage or drive out illness, if one knew what they were looking for. The pages containing the spell were filled with warnings against messing about with things when you didn't know what they did; the results could be fatal. That was why Sophie had the anatomy book. However, the spell required an almost trancelike state of concentration in order to maintain a link between the eyes and the image, and the smaller the problem, the greater the focus was required to sustain the connection. Therefore, an infection required a deeper awareness than, say, repairing a broken bone. Sophie wasn't at all sure that she could maintain the focus required, but there was nothing wasted in trying. She reviewed her notes one last time.

The door to the yard suddenly flew open and Howl reappeared, attempting to hold onto the myriad pieces of his half assembled divination spell. He kicked the door shut and made his way over to her, water dripping from the ends of his hair.

"Is it raining again?" she asked, moving a book out of harm's way as he dropped the entire pile onto the workbench. Market Chipping had had a very wet autumn this year. He shook his head briefly, sending water droplets flying.

"It's snowing."

"Already?" Sophie couldn't help wrinkling her nose just a little in disgust. She should've expected it; it was nearly December after all. But she hated snow, though Howl's expression when he'd received a snowball to the face and another down his shirt last year had almost been worth being outside.

"I remained outside for as long as I could bear it for your sake," he added, inclining his head nobly, "But in the end it was simply too much for me. I content myself with the thought that though I may catch pneumonia and die tomorrow, at least I left you in peace. I hope that after my death you can manage to look back upon me favorably." Then, less nobly, he brushed her braid aside and applied one freezing hand to the back of her neck. Sophie squeaked in surprise and shoved him, jerking away.

"If you intend on sharing this workbench with me, you're going to have to keep your icicles to yourself." she huffed, as she moved her things to the opposite end of the workbench and carefully rearranged them. With Howl there, she was going to have to refocus herself, and that would take ages. At least, she thought as she watched him organize the parts to the spell with some logic which only he understood, _her_ spell didn't require her to build a vessel in which to store it. That in addition to everything else would have been far too much to manage all at one time. He seemed to be taking an unusual amount of care with this spell, presumably to prove to the King that he knew what he was doing. Normally, he couldn't be so neat about spellwork if his life depended on it.

"If you were to die of pneumonia tomorrow," Sophie asked, carefully keeping her eyes on her book, "How many funerals would I need to organize? And which would we have first?" Howl made a wordless sound of irritation, and from then on seemed bent on ignoring her, which meant that he probably wouldn't bother her until she was finished.

Selecting the cupboard door as a focus object, Sophie settled her gaze there and began taking deep, measured breaths. She let her sight blur and forced her mind into blankness. Her senses slowly dulled and faded away, leading her into a black emptiness. She made the few necessary gestures to state her intent. An image was just beginning to form itself in the blackness behind her eyes when she felt her spell disintegrating. Despite her best efforts, she found herself returned to the present. Her eyes cleared and she stared at Howl in confusion.

You had your eyes closed." he said. He sounded unnaturally loud after the utter silence of the void that she'd been in.

"You ended my spell to tell me that my eyes were closed?" Sophie asked incredulously, "I thought you had to get up early to go to the King, not watch my casting technique." This sounded like the beginning of a most promising argument.

Howl, however, didn't seem interested in taking the bait. "You know better."

That was true enough. From the beginning, Sophie had closed her eyes while working more complicated spells, in order to focus. Howl's argument was that she couldn't very well do that during a time when she needed to be aware of her environment, while Sophie had pointed out that it was unlikely that she'd ever be in a duel. She'd been able to argue the point with some success until a Strangian spy had attempted to kidnap her in order to convince Howl to, if not switch sides altogether, then at least stop helping Ingary. She'd worked more diligently to cure her habit after that. However, this time Sophie thought that she might have found an exception.

"Would I want to do that for a spell I cast on myself? Not disguise; directed inward. It takes a lot of concentration to focus in two directions at once." She was genuinely interested. This was a type of magical theory that she'd never touched.

Howl came to look over her shoulder. He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Yes." he said at last, "Since this spell could also be used on another person, you need to be able to direct the magic in any direction. I've never used this one, actually. What are you doing with it?"

Sophie hesitated for what she knew was a second too long before she spoke.

"Err—." One of Howl's eyebrows slowly slid upwards. She sighed resignedly. "I'm trying it out on myself. I've caught whatever you and Michael had, and I'd rather not keep it." Howl promptly began to make some protest about performing such a spell when she wasn't completely well. "Don't!" She cut him off sharply, "I _am_ going to do this. This is what it's _meant_ for. It'll be fine. Besides, you're here to stop me if it goes wrong." Howl still looked unhappy as he went back to the other side of the workbench, but Sophie ignored him. He looked unhappy often enough for her to be quite used to it.

"Bother!" she muttered to a book, "This means that I have to start over, doesn't it? Well, fine then. This time I'll get the spell started even faster, see if I don't!" She thought that she might have seen Howl smile out of the corner of her eye, but she was too busy breathing to pay much attention.

She achieved senselessness quickly, and the image formed again. Sophie could suddenly see the inside of her entire body, dark as it must be underneath her skin, every bit of it pulsing with activity and life. It was fascinating, but she soon discovered that if her attention faltered at all, the spell began to fall apart. Putting the prospect of exploration aside, she set to work, reaching her magic into herself, focusing closer and deeper to draw the illness out and away. It wasn't a long process, but a draining one. Sophie felt her concentration waver several times near the end. Since there all sorts of tiny, glowing things floating about inside of her, it was difficult to keep herself from removing something she shouldn't. Her magic worked with her body to speed the natural healing process along, and she was soon finished.

Howl hadn't done much of anything on his spell in the meantime. In fact, she became self aware again only to find him watching her without even pretending to work.

"How long did that take?" she asked, leaning surreptitiously on the workbench for support. She hadn't expected the spell to be such tiring work.

"Not very long. You didn't even blink. Did it work?" Sophie took a mental inventory of her condition and was pleasantly surprised to discover that she felt better. Her chills and aches had vanished, and so had the churning in her stomach, which she had been barely aware of until it was gone. Sophie grinned. With the immediate problem solved, exploration beckoned.

"I think that I'm going to try it again." she decided aloud, starting to gesture again. Howl frowned in surprise.

"It didn't work then?"

"Of course it did!" she said with a touch of asperity, "I followed the directions, didn't I? I just want to look some more." Howl shrugged and made a show of looking away, reaching for some bit of wire and painstakingly attaching it to the growing structure. Sophie shook her head and let herself fall into nothing again.

It was much easier to maintain the spell when she was only looking, rather than manipulating. Sophie took the time to watch her own heart pump blood through her veins, see her throat swallow reflexively, and even look at her eyes from the inside, observing the way the pupils dilated and contracted. From there, she traveled up and down the length of herself, venturing inside organs, trying to guess what she was looking at and what it did. Periodically, she would break the spell and look things up in the book, comparing what she had seen with the pictures. Traveling back and forth also allowed her the chance to see Howl work at his spell, which grew a bit every time she returned. He _was_ putting an unusual amount of effort into it; while it wasn't one of the perfectly constructed art forms that Michael routinely produced, it was far neater than he usually bothered to be.

Eventually, Sophie found that she didn't know where she was. It wasn't clearly evident from looking around her what this particular part did. Nothing seemed to be happening. A more thorough examination revealed a strange little lump protruding from the wall, glowing with a soft pulsing light that meant that it was responding to her magic. She was immediately worried. The book containing the spell had discussed the formation of growths or lumps inside. They could be very dangerous, and Sophie felt a pang of anxiety. She resolved not to panic until she knew what it was.

She reached out uncertainly and fed a bit of magic into the oddly shaped growth. To her shock, her tentative attempt was rebuffed; the magic was reflected back vigorously. Sophie decided to use her own particular brand of magic instead. With much practice, she had strengthened her natural gift of talking life into things. Only another person could resist the call of her power; a mysterious growth, no matter how frightening, should pose no problem.

This time, Sophie reached out forcefully and _willed_ the lump to reveal its purpose. Even as the full force of her magic came back, knocking her spell down around her, Sophie had her answer. Nothing had changed since last she checked. Only humans could defend against her particular brand of magic. And she wasn't resisting her own.

Sophie snapped back to consciousness and had a split second to see Howl openly gaping at her before the strength of the expelled magic doubled her over like a physical blow. She took the opportunity to sink to her knees and take a moment to absorb what she'd learned, trembling from head to toe. Cautiously, she moved to stand, and found it more difficult than she anticipated. Howl was already beside her and lifted her to her feet, holding her tightly when she wobbled. After a minute or two of just breathing deeply, she leaned back, trying to keep her tone light.

"How's the spell coming?" Honestly, even her _voice _was shaking. This was ridiculous. Howl didn't seem to hear her.

"Are you going to stand on your own now?" he asked. Sophie let go of him and took an experimental step backwards, nodding once it was clear that despite some lingering discomfort in her stomach, she wasn't going to fall over. She passed a hand over the place absently, soothing the pain away.

"Right then," he said briskly, "Sophie, while I was building the spell—"

"I didn't do anything!" she immediately rose to her own defense. "I was doing my own! _One_ little incident and now whenever something goes wrong, it's always _my_ fault-"

"It always is." he interrupted, "But that's not the point. Do you remember how one goes about building a divination spell?"

That was a silly question. Of course she did. Once a divination spell with all of its complexities was completed, only one question could be asked of it. This was why Howl, Michael, and Ben spent so much time building them. However, in beginning stages, to make certain it was being put together correctly, the caster could ask simple questions. They received brief, disjointed bits of information until the all of the pieces were spelled together, which allowed for a more complex response. At her nod, Howl continued, but with a most peculiar tone to his voice.

"I tested it by asking what you were looking at. There were several things which made no sense at all, and at the very end of it, there was an image of you standing—well, rather like you are now, actually—" he paused and glanced downwards meaningfully. Sophie followed his gaze, made the disconcerting discovery that she still had both of her hands pressed low against her stomach. She immediately clasped them behind her back, "But with a bit… more to you than there is now. Have you…perhaps…come to the same conclusion?" By the time he was finished, he seemed to have gone a bit hoarse.

It took a moment for Sophie to work out exactly what he meant. Once she did, she was so surprised at first that she couldn't do much more than stammer out a "Yes, just now." After she stopped to consider it, she realized what Howl had done. It was just like him to get it backwards! He might be from a land of all sorts of strange ideas, but they were in Ingary now, and in Ingary it was the _mother's_ right to tell the father, when and only when she was prepared to. Or, in this case, when and only when she found out. Fisting her hands on her hips, she fixed him with her most blistering glare.

"This is all wrong! Don't you know how this works? This is _not _something that _you _are supposed to tell _me_! Honestly, leave it to _you _to mess up such a simple thing!" If she could've produced slime of any color at that moment, she would have. But Howl was curiously unaffected by her raging, even for him. He was staring as though he'd never seen her before. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before snapping it shut again with a shake of his head. "Well? What? Is there anything else I didn't know?"

Howl shook his head again. "Nothing important." He bent down and, to her surprise, placed a soft kiss on her forehead. "I need to go… take care of something now." Wearing a stunned expression similar to when Sophie had hit him with the pan, he turned and walked shakily toward the door. He didn't touch the still incomplete divination spell.

"What about the King?" Sophie asked, a tiny tendril of alarm beginning to unfurl inside of her.

"He won't notice. He's swamped with appointments right now anyway." He assured her, smiling weakly. "I shouldn't be too long, cariad." Howl opened the door and went out slowly, only just remembering to shut the door behind him.

Sophie stared after him in confusion, unheeding of Calcifer's demands for an explanation. Three things had been seriously wrong with that exchange. Howl hadn't spoken his mind immediately when she'd practically invited him to. He had called her cariad, which he reserved for serious occasions. And, somehow, the most distressing of all was the kiss. He hadn't, she thought, touching a fingertip to the spot, kissed her like that since she first let him kiss her properly. She idly wondered where he'd gone for long minutes, before she had the presence of mind to look at the knob above the door.

It was black down.

Sophie didn't have to wonder what Howl's business in Wales was. He was obviously going out to either get himself drunk or walk around for hours, depending on how much this news had distressed him. Oddly, she wasn't particularly saddened or upset by his reaction. Rather, she felt herself filling with a growing anger. They had discussed this, had lifted the spell over her last spring, and now he had to go convince himself that it wasn't actually happening. He hadn't even remembered to change his clothes first. The nerve! He might've at least _pretended _to be pleased! Her fury welled inside of her until she thought that she'd be sick with it. After a moment, she realized that that was exactly what was going to happen. Sophie borrowed several of Martha's favorite words as she spun on her heel and fled into the bathroom, pulling the door only half shut on her way.

As she retched miserably, she took the time to revise her thoughts. She had obviously been wrong to place the blame on Martha before obtaining all of the facts. Between bouts, Sophie rested her head on the cool tile floor and ordered her stomach to settle itself, but to no avail. Whenever she began to calm, she'd think of Howl and be sick all over again.

"This isn't fair!" Sophie panted to her white faced reflection, "_He_ goes out to get drunk, and _I'm_ left with the hangover!" She had discovered a distinct disadvantage to floor-to-ceiling mirrors: no matter how she angled her head, she could clearly see how terrible she looked. At least she'd tied her hair back this morning. She certainly didn't need to deal with _that _on top of everything else.

Eventually there was simply nothing left in her stomach, and after a few minutes of stillness Sophie carefully climbed to her feet. When her stomach continued to behave itself she breathed a sigh of relief and began to pull herself together. She ran a damp cloth over her face and neck and rebraided her hair, and rinsed out her mouth. After a moment's thought, Sophie turned and studied at her profile in the mirror. She searched for any physical change, and concluded that she looked just about the same as she always had. Though not, she thought, for much longer. A smile tugged at her lips in spite of herself.

She was finishing a large glass of water when the door creaked open the rest of the way. She turned to find Howl standing warily in the doorway. Sophie stared at him over the rim of her glass, searching for anything vaguely resembling remorse. When she found nothing of the sort, her stomach contracted painfully and she turned away, retching all over again. She reached out blindly with one hand to set her glass on the vanity; she got it there, but the glass was too close to the edge. She distantly heard the sound of it breaking and hoped that the sight of her had been enough to keep Howl away until she could control her stomach again.

Finally, Sophie lay stretched out on the floor, staring at the ceiling.

"I think I felt better when I thought I was just sick." she told it. "It was stupid of me not to figure it out. That lump _looked_ like…" she paused a moment before she said it out loud, "…like a baby. How did I not realize?"

"No point in worrying about it now." Howl suddenly appeared in her field of vision and sat down beside her. It was an odd sight; he immaculately dressed in his new blue and silver suit, sitting cross-legged on the bathroom floor. He urged her to sit up.

"I was comfortable." Sophie protested uselessly. Her vision swam for a moment once she was upright again, so she moved until she was able to lean against his back. Once she was settled, he reached around awkwardly and pressed a glass into her hands. There was no broken glass in evidence, so she assumed that he had repaired the one that she'd dropped.

"I don't suppose you washed it." she murmured as she raised it to her lips. The contents was ridiculously sweet, brightly colored, and it fizzed. Something from his world, then.

"It should settle your stomach." he assured her. It was so unusually thoughtful of him that Sophie decided to pretend that she hadn't noticed his slithering.

"Is this the first time, or have you been sick before and I just didn't notice?"

"Only just now, and while you were gone. I'd bet that if I hadn't figured out that I…if I hadn't figured it out today, I would've escaped morning sickness altogether." she felt Howl shrug. "How long were you gone?"

"No more than an hour. I told you that I wouldn't be long. I just wanted to see about taking you to a doctor and getting looked at."

"What? Why? Can't we just do that here?" Whether it was Ingary or Wales, a doctor was a doctor, and she hated them all. She felt Howl take a breath to argue and she cut him off.

"That took you an hour?" She could see his face in the reflection of the mirror she faced, and an almost guilty expression had flitted across his features.

"I stopped for a drink on my way back." he said, and catching her frown in the mirror, added irritably, "Stop that! _One_ drink, Mrs. Abolition, no more. The man almost wouldn't let me have one. He thought that I was drunk already. Once I explained myself, I got one for free. Useful trick, that; I'll have to remember it." At her questioning look he elaborated. "Apparently, I was walking about with such an odd look on my face that he thought that I'd already had a few drinks. When I told him about you, he said that anyone in my position would do the same thing, so he let me have it. He says congratulations, by the way."

Sophie caught herself before she smiled. He hadn't been upset, then. "You might have told me where you were going," she suggested testily, "Rather than leaving me wondering if you were coming back today. And saying that you were happy about this wouldn't have hurt, either." She took another sip from her glass with a grimace, and almost choked on Howl's unexpectedly direct answer.

"Well, of course I am. Don't be silly. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Don't ask me. You're the one who wandered out the door like a shock victim. That suggested to me that something wasn't quite right."

"Ah," came his enlightened reply. "I suppose that I was one. Between the blow to the head and the intemperate weather... But I was surprised, Sophie, that's all. It hasn't been that long. And what a way to hear about it! You _would_ leave me to figure it out by accident."

Well then. Sophie felt worlds better now. However, there was an unexpected prickling sensation behind her eyes which needed to be dealt with immediately. "But honestly! Using me for free drinks. You really shouldn't exploit your wife when she's in such a fragile condition, you know."

"I wouldn't dream of it. You're the most fragile person I know." Howl said solemnly. "Are you finished with that yet?" he asked at length, glancing over his shoulder at the glass she held.

She held her breath, downed the rest of her drink in one gulp, and rose to her feet without assistance. She fully intended to go to bed now; she was tired of the bathroom.

"Hey, wait a minute!" He was a bit slower in standing, having to untangle his longer limbs first, but he caught up and grabbed her hand. "You should probably stay here for the time being, just to be safe."

"I'd really rather not, thanks."

"No, stay here; I'll be right back." He vanished out the door, glancing back to make sure that she wasn't moving. He returned with one of the books that she had been using earlier.

"Somewhere in this should be spells we can use, once I figure out how, to make certain everything's going well with you. Both of you, I mean." Howl flipped through it impatiently for a moment, and then thrust it at Sophie. "Here, look through this." They searched through the book in companionable silence, occasionally marking something Howl thought useful. His cure appeared to have worked; Sophie felt remarkably fit now. Upon gathering any spell they thought necessary, they set to work.

"What do you need me to do?" he asked.

"Nothing. I can do it." she said, resting one hand on her abdomen and waving one hand experimentally. "Let me see the book."

"You can't just drop into a trance _now_." he objected, reaching out to catch her wrist before she could make the first gesture, "You've been doing draining magic all morning. You'll need help, and," he added, meeting her scowl for scowl, "All of the glaring in the world isn't going to change my mind, _coch_."

Somehow, Sophie suspected that pointing out that he routinely exhausted himself in a similar manner wouldn't help. She decided to give in gracefully. "Just lend me some magic." She said, looking at his hand where it still rested on her wrist. Howl was silent for a long moment.

"I don't suppose I'm allowed to see?" he asked at last sulkily. For some reason, he clearly expected her to say no. In response, she silently laid his hand over hers.

It took some guesswork and a few false starts, but between the two of them, they determined that the baby was a perfectly healthy boy, undisturbed by the magic Sophie had used on him. Furthermore, Sophie found she could lay claim to the dubious achievement of not realizing she was pregnant for nearly three months. Reluctantly ending the last spell, she studied Howl in the mirror. He had put his other arm around her, and now stood behind her, staring into space over her head. For a moment, Sophie thought she glimpsed the expression that the man at the pub had seen; not a grin exactly, but a faint tugging at the corners of his mouth, coupled with a faraway gaze that _did_ make him look less than sober. It was fleeting though, and she was left with nothing to do but wait. After a solid minute, she lost her patience and began amusing herself by attempting to lift the spell that kept his hair blond.

"Come on," she whispered, moving her hands as well as she could, imprisoned as they were beneath his, "You know his hair shouldn't be that color anyway. It's unnatural. Let go."

Howl's eyes lost their glazed over appearance just as his hair had finished darkening to its proper, muddy brown color.

"I do hope that you're planning on putting that back." that his voice betrayed only irritation and not fury was an indication of his extraordinarily good mood.

"Maybe." she said, tilting her head back to face him rather than the mirror. "What were you thinking about, just now?" Not that she expected anything remotely resembling the truth.

Sure enough, Howl made a thoughtful sounding noise and spent a good ten seconds pondering his answer. Sophie was surprised that he hadn't thought one up beforehand.

"Actually, I was thinking that this," he indicated their reflections, "Would make an excellent picture." He was plotting something; Sophie would recognize that expression at fifty paces.

"Well," she said cautiously, "We could get one. It wouldn't take long. I think that there's someone in Market Chipping who—"

"No, not like that." he waved his hand impatiently on his way out the door, "A picture from my world. It's faster, the image will be clearer, and it won't raise any questions from Megan."

"Why would a picture do that? This is for us, isn't it?" Sophie breathed a small sigh of relief upon at last leaving the bathroom behind.

"Yes, but," his grin left him looking no older than Michael, "It'll be a easy thing to make a copy, write the pertinent information on the back, and stick it in her mailbox on the way home."

"What? Howl! I think that this might be the sort of news meant to be shared in person!" Sophie would have said much more if Howl hadn't chosen to silence her most effectively. After a moment he continued, oblivious to Calcifer making faces at her over his shoulder.

"We'll tell everyone properly soon. This just solves two problems at once. My sister, as you know, has been nagging me for ages to get a picture of us for her. She still has friends who don't believe that I'm safely married off." For a moment, Howl looked as though he didn't quite believe it, either.

"And?" she prompted when he trailed off and stood silent, worrying the ring he wore absently.

"And," he echoed dutifully with a not-quite-innocent shrug, "This is exactly the sort of thing Megan would expect of me. I can't disappoint her; I'd be a failure as a no-good younger brother otherwise."

Sophie snorted and finally turned her attention to Calcifer, who was now bobbing so close that he was in danger of setting Howl's hair aflame. "What?"

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" he whined, "You vanish for hours and now you're just going to leave without saying a word!" Sophie looked over and was startled to see that Howl had already altered his clothes to be fit for Wales and was now starting work on hers.

"I didn't think that you meant now!" she exclaimed, flinging her hands up futilely to fend him off.

He ignored them and continued. "There is no time like the present Sophie." Sophie filed that away to use on him later, perhaps when the workbench next needed organizing. "Maybe you should tell Calcifer now. It'll be good practice."

"Oh. Well," she paused uncertainly. There was a difference between speaking of this with Howl and saying it aloud to someone else. She could suddenly see the merit of just sending notes to everyone she wanted told. Or perhaps just to her stepmother. With Fanny's help, all of Ingary would know within three days. However, Calcifer was hovering in front of her expectantly, and he would give her no peace until he knew.

"I'm…we're…Well, I'm…I'm going to have… a baby…I guess."

Fine job, she congratulated herself wryly. That couldn't have sounded more awkward if she'd planned it that way. Howl suppressed what sounded suspiciously like a laugh, and she glared fiercely. "You can do it next time, and see how it goes!" She smirked at his sudden, dutiful focus on transforming her shoes. It was occasionally useful to be married to a coward.

Calcifer didn't react in any of the ways she thought he might. "Took you long enough to figure it out, didn't it? And after all of the effort I put into dropping hints, too."

Some of the things that he had said over the past few months suddenly made a bit more sense. Sophie crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at him.

"I'm beginning to think that maybe you didn't suggest I heal myself out of concern for my well-being."

Howl paused in his activities and looked at Calcifer incredulously, "_You_ told her to do that?"

Calcifer squirmed a bit under their combined stares and broke away, spiraling towards the ceiling. "It was in my best interests. On your own, neither of you would've noticed until after it started talking. _Then_ it would've been, "_Calcifer_, why didn't you _say_ something' and '_Calcifer_, you never tell us _anything_'! And that wouldn't have been fair at all. I don't have a contract anymore and I don't deserve the blame."

Considering all that had happened that morning, Sophie rather thought that he had done it just to watch the resulting chaos. Howl didn't say anything, just took her arm and began urging her towards the door. She suddenly remembered the abandoned spell on the workbench.

"If you hurried, you might make it to see the King only a little bit late." Howl cheerfully suggested something crude and rather unlikely that the King could do without breaking stride.

"He won't even miss me." he assured her. "I have better things to do anyway." he opened the door and stood aside, gesturing that she could pass first. She began to do so, then paused and looked up hopefully.

"Since we did the spells here, do I still have to go to the doctor in Wales?" All she got for her trouble was a firm "Yes." Undaunted, she tried again.

"Why?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"For someone with such a long nose, you are displaying a marked lack of curiosity. Just think of all of the questions you can ask!"

"Don't slither!"

And they continued in that manner even as she took the hand he offered and they went out into the unusually sunny morning in Wales. Calcifer floated in the middle of the suddenly empty castle.

"That was even more fun than I thought it would be." he crackled gleefully, heading back to the grate. After all that he had done, he, in his own humble opinion, most definitely deserved a nap.

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I felt the need to spell out that Sophie did not fall pregnant and have morning sickness 5 minutes later. That's not (usually) how such things work in reality, and often seems to be how they work in stories.


	3. Chapter 3

So, what is up with the uploader? It duplicates the first sentence in every chapter. Lame.

Yep, I'm back. I had this next part planned when I wrote the beginning, what... 5 years ago? And I procrastinated, and then I get mad when I see someone else had the same ideas as me, but it's my own silly fault. It was going to go in its own story, but adding these next few bits to the original a.) offers continuity, and b.) means that I DON'T have to come up with a new title. Titling stories is the worst part about writing, IMHO. I'll probably go back and edit the first two chapters, in order to conceal my embarrassing 5-year-old lameness. Should be anywhere from 1-3 chapters following this one.

Big thanks to **Iolanthe**, the beta-ing guru who bravely attacked my oddly grouped sentences and dared to point out my mack truck sized plot hole. She rocks my socks.

* * *

Sophie reached up to brush a strand of red gold hair out of her eyes, swiped again to remove the smudge of dirt she'd added to her forehead, and surveyed the freshly weeded flower bed with satisfaction. It had taken her all week to tend to the mansion's many gardens, but she'd finally finished the last one.

"Now weeds," she said, addressing the roots and sleeping seeds still hiding in the soil, "you know that I like dealing with you by hand. But my baby will be here soon, and I shall need a week or two after that before I'm out and about as usual_. _You need to stay right underground until then. I won't have you choking my flowers, understand?" As she spoke, she smoothed her hands over the soil, feeling in her fingertips the small nod of assent each root and seed gave as it fell under her spell.

Sophie glanced up at the sun and sighed. It was almost noon. Being out in the summer heat this far along in the pregnancy made her dizzy. She wiped her hands on her skirts and swiveled on her knees with difficulty, reaching up with both hands to grasp the silver bar that hovered near her right shoulder.

"Up, please," she said politely. The bar rose sharply and pulled her to her feet, though not, she noticed with some irritation, without quivering from the effort. Sophie stretched, bracing her hands behind her hips, and looked down at the bump where her waist used to be, where her son had now hugely taken up residence.

"You could make this easier, you know," she informed him. "I haven't seen my feet since January. I haven't slept all night since March. And now you're so big that even magic barely gets us moving. Why don't you pretend you're a balloon and float?"

No response. Morgan slept on as he always did—contrarily, during the day. He always saved his best gymnastics for the middle of the night. Of course he paid no attention at all to her words or to the tiny bit of magical suggestion she sent with them. _Difficult as his father_, she thought with both a snort and a smile, as she made her meandering, waddly way back toward the front door, the silver bar bobbing courteously along behind her.

The primroses were finally blooming, and the tulips had lasted longer than usual. The midsummer flowers were well underway, although May had been rather dry. If this kept up they'd have to hire a gardener until she was up and about again. Howl, attempting to persuade Sophie to rest more, had promised her the flowers would be cared for, but with all he had on his mind she could hardly expect him to remember even a once-a-week watering spell. Perhaps for his next project Caden could invent a bottomless watering can.

Closest to the mansion, following the curve of the drive all the way to the elaborate front door were Sophie's own creations. There with coaxing words, loving care, and her own special magic she had grown a small bush with fragrant yellow blossoms from a lemon drop, towering blue and white striped sunflowers, and tiny purple bell shaped blossoms that chimed faintly in the breeze as she passed. She had meant these and her other experiments to go behind the house or stay in the castle, but Howl insisted that she display them with pride. Sophie knew he had other motives—strategically placed outside the Kingsbury door were two large pots of bright pink snapdragons, which actually snapped.

Not that that had kept the King's messengers away. Young men in the royal livery appeared at the door almost daily, bearing praise for the Royal Magician, updates on the war, and demands for fresh spells. When the flowers attacked they'd interrupt their flowery speeches with a yelp and jump away, rubbing smarting limbs and backsides.

One must have arrived while she was out, because when Sophie opened the door, Howl and Michael were busy at the workbench, which had been moved into an expanded corner to accommodate a new kitchen table. Caden stood at Michael's elbow, tugging anxiously at his carrot colored hair and trying to look useful. Poor thing, he still didn't quite seem to believe that he'd been Howl's new apprentice for three months. Michael had found him in Kingsbury one day, brought him home and fed him half of Sophie's pantry, and told him to watch and try to learn something. The hovering pull-up bar had been his first successful project.

"What's this?" Howl had said of the undersized boy he'd finally noticed asleep in the chair by the fire. "A long-lost cousin of yours, Sophie? The nose isn't quite long enough, and he looks like he'd wash away in one of your cleaning sprees, but the hair's about right."

Sophie had reacted by shouting that her hair was neither carrot nor ginger nor red, which Howl ought to know considering how vain he was of _his_ hair, then bursting into tears and fleeing upstairs to hide in the bedroom for half an hour. Months four through six of her pregnancy had brought about an uneasy peace in the moving castle in deference to her rapid changes in mood. Even Calcifer had not dared to tease her. Everyone, herself included, had breathed a sigh of relief when month seven had her sleeping and eating constantly instead.

Now that month nine was here, Howl was less than happy with Sophie's burst of irrepressible energy. "Nesting is one thing, but aren't you supposed to put your feet up once in a while, Mrs. Get-up-and-go?" he asked from the workbench, where he was assembling spell pieces as quickly and imprecisely as he could manage while still getting them to work.

"The gardens aren't going to weed themselves," she said primly, then turning to Caden, added, "They aren't going to water themselves either. I'm going to need a special watering can. Do you want to help?"

He nodded vigorously, puppy-like in his desire to please. "I'll water the flowers too, Sophie. I don't mind."

"Don't start volunteering for things!" came a protest from the grate. "They'll just go on asking, until before you know it you're the exploited, helpless slave of an entire family who won't even throw you a log to keep you from starving."

"Good, you're back." Howl didn't even look up. "Get over here and tell me what's gone wrong. I could make these stupid divination spells in my sleep, but every single piece of this one is spinning and trying to crawl apart. Did you bring some bizarre magical influence back with you from one of your little vacations?"

"So is mine." Michael was determinedly trying to push together two squirming pieces of wire. "And I can see it's leaking somewhere, but I can't trace it."

"_See??"_ Calcifer wailed at Caden as he leapt from the grate and streaked to the workbench, trailing a wave of heat behind him.

"Stay away!" Sophie said, fanning herself irritably. "You're too hot." She hadn't wanted to be anywhere near the fire demon in weeks. She turned back to Caden, who had been furiously taking notes, and was about to give him further instructions when Morgan kicked her sharply in the ribs and began turning somersaults. She gasped for breath and tottered, her knees buckling. Howl dropped the spell and ran and caught her in his arms. Hooking an elegant brown boot around the leg of the nearest chair, he dragged it over and helped her sit.

"Easy, now! What's wrong?"

"He's just moving," she said soothingly, but her middle was still visibly churning under her dress. "I don't know why he's so active. He's never awake at this hour." Howl nodded and went back to work, but he continued to look worried and tired, a combination she had seen much too much of since the war started. Sophie was starting to miss his lazy, slithering peacock self. She tried to smile at him, but just then Morgan launched both fists into her bladder.

"Bother!" she groaned, leaning heavily on the table, pushing herself to her feet, and staggering toward the bathroom for the twelfth time that morning. As she passed Calcifer she heard him crackling thoughtfully, "Well, it's definitely not of this world, but I can't quite get a feel for it…"

When Sophie returned she found a glass of ice-water waiting for her on the table. Collapsing gracelessly back into her chair, she fished out the ice and crunched on it gratefully. Morgan was still agitated, lashing out with hands, feet, and head.

"If you want out, that's fine with me," she told him. "I'm sure you're sick of being crowded. But there's no need to throw a tantrum. I can't do anything about it." Morgan replied with an extra strong kick. She was about to poke him back, when Calcifer suddenly flared, arcing away from the workbench.

"A Djinn!" he roared. "His magic is binding your spells. He's close, and coming closer!" Apparently Calcifer had stabilized the divination spell long enough for Howl to make sense of it, because he was staring into it now, seeing what it told.

"It's coming here to steal the castle and then fly off to Kingsbury and kidnap the Princess Valeria. It will be here before dark." Sophie watched Howl cross his arms and look slowly around the room, taking in the sight of his grim-looking senior apprentice, his bewildered younger apprentice, and his very pregnant wife.

"_Arglwydd Mawr,_" he groaned. "I knew things were going too smoothly."


	4. Chapter 4

I loved writing this chapter. I like making them fight. The next chapter will be slow in coming--I finally overcame my writer's block, (not for plot, just in wording) just in time for a huge thunderstorm to come through, knock out my power, and eat my hard-won two pages. Argh.

Thanks and cookies to **Iolanthe**, who not only betas like a champ, but is also willing to discuss Inglish fashion with me. Say no to tights, folks.

* * *

An hour later, the castle was in complete chaos. Michael and Howl stood off in one corner arguing, Michael with fierce whispers and wild gestures, Howl intensely but calmly, looking not nearly nervous enough. Caden had made the mistake of asking Calcifer what a djinn was, and now sat in goggle-eyed silence while the fire demon happily provided the boy with weeks of nightmares. Every magical item in the castle, and there were plenty, was shaking or smoking or whistling in distress as the incredible source of magic drew nearer. Morgan continued to react by bruising his mother's insides.

Only Sophie remained calm, strangely placid despite Morgan's kicks. She hummed to herself as she cleaned up a hastily prepared, mostly uneaten lunch, then swept up all that was left of the divination spell after Calcifer stopped holding it steady and everything exploded. Silently she asked the broom to pick up Howl and Michael's conversation and bring it to her.

"—can't possibly hold the castle alone. Not against a Djinn, and you know it. You need me here."

"I doubt every witch and wizard in the country together could hold it," Howl said dismissively, with a wave of a mauve silk sleeve. "But I won't be alone. Calcifer will stay long enough to help me deactivate any useful spell and leave a few nasty surprises. We should get out in time. I can't imagine it wants anything with us anyway. There hasn't been a djinn in Ingary in generations.

"Djinns always meddle, Howl! Whatever game it's dreamed up, you'll be right in the middle of it. I can help. You know I'm good at defensive magic." Out of the corner of her eye Sophie saw Michael draw himself up to his full height, slightly taller than Howl, and look Howl directly in the eye. "I'm nearly a wizard in my own right now."

"I need you to take care of Caden, or after you've left me I shall be out an apprentice. If the castle is taken, go to Suliman's. He'll need your help. No one is strong enough to take on a Djinn."

"So what are _you_ going to do then?" Michael demanded.

Howl shrugged airily, looking completely unconcerned. "Make it up as I go along, I guess."

"But what about Sophie?" Michael persisted. "Surely you're not going to keep _her_ here?"

Howl shrugged again. Sophie deactivated her spell, thrusting the broom aside with a scowl. If he thought he was going to send her away and attempt to deal with this on his own, well, he was wrong! She knew plenty of spells. He was too great a coward to be left to face the djinn himself. And no creature, however powerful, was going to steal her home and do who knew what terrible things to it, with the bathroom freshly painted too! She stewed as she bustled around, helping Caden pack, digging out the seven league boots just in case. By the time the two apprentices were ready to leave for Fanny's mansion, Sophie had worked herself up into a snorting, stomping fury. She prepared herself for battle by dropping clumsily to her knees, struggling to reach around her belly as she gave the floor a good hard scrubbing.

Michael was still giving last minute suggestions as the door closed behind him.

"The country may be at war," Howl said grandly. "Unspeakable forces may descend upon us, abducting our royalty and stealing the home from over our heads, but Sophie's floor will be clean. Up you get, and pack a bag. I can't have you poking your nose in this time."

"And just where do you think I'm going?" she asked with gritted teeth, panting with the force she was putting on the scrub brush. His response was muffled, half his body having disappeared in the cupboard under the sink.

"To Wales, of course, to stay at my sister's, where you will be safe and out of the way—_and_ near the hospital, if things go worse than I imagined" He backed out on his knees, his arms full of mysterious bottles which Sophie had cleaned but never opened because they were spelled shut.

"You can't send me to stay with her!" she protested. "You know we can't get along for fifteen minutes, never mind—never mind however long it's going to take to deal with this djinn. And I'm not going to that horrible hospital. I hate it. I shall have my son right here in Ingary, where I belong."

"If I can't be there, I want you in the hospital where I don't have to worry. You're due in two weeks, and you've already had contractions." He was pouring nasty, smelly things into one of her good mixing bowls with one hand and turning pages in a musty spell book with the other.

"Megan says that first babies are always late," Sophie countered, scrubbing at a particularly stubborn spot, "and these are the fake kind of contractions anyway. When Morgan really means it, he'll let me know. I already told you that." She paused suddenly and looked up from her scrubbing. "What do you mean, '_if you can't be there_?!'"

Howl ignored her, abruptly dropping the spell he was mixing and running up the stairs, shouting something to Calcifer about the wards.

"_Howl!" _She struggled to get up, then sank back down, out of breath. "You miserable slitherer-outer! Get back here! Don't you know it's ten times worse when I can't follow you?"

"You should go, you know," Calcifer said, spitting and fizzing anxiously. "A djinn is serious business, Sophie. If you really knew, you wouldn't want to be anywhere near here."

"No. We all go, or we all stay." She crawled to a chair and pulled herself up. "I'd be miserable in Wales with no one but Howl's family. You need me. Can't you disguise me?"

"I've got enough to do without worrying about you!" came a bellow from upstairs, accompanied by furious scraping and thumping sounds, as though Howl was frantically moving all the furniture. "Get packing!"

"If things are this bad, then you _really_ need my help!" Sophie shouted, laboriously hurrying toward the stairs. Howl was glaring down at her from the second step, his normally immaculate blonde hair in complete disarray, his arms full of junk.

"Make me invisible! Let me stay!"

"I want you as far away from here as you can get. I only hope another world will be far enough. When this all blows over, I'll come and get you." He brushed past her, dropped his burden on the table, and began hurriedly building a spell.

Sophie recognized the pattern he was following. She gathered up several pieces and began assembling them. They passed a quiet quarter hour, interrupted only by Howl shouting instructions to Calcifer. Then he uttered the words that sealed the spell.

Sophie tried again. "Howl, what if it _doesn't_ blow over? You're going to need my—"

"The most helpful thing you can do is stay safely out of the way in Wales, where there are vast quantities of every food you've ever craved, a television instead of scrubbing floors to occupy your time, a niece who adores you_—and_ a proper hospital, just in case."

He headed back for the stairs.

"And a sister-in-law who hates me!" she yelled after him.

"If the two of you would just stop fighting over who's going to be in charge," he called over his shoulder, "you'd realize that most the time you actually agree with each other."

She stormed after him, up the stairs and into their bedroom, where he was pulling books and odd-looking objects she'd never seen before out of their closet. What _is_ this stuff?" she asked.

"The usual wards aren't going to faze a djinn in the least. To scare the thing off I'm going to need to outdo even myself."

Vain man! Sophie squared her shoulders and was about to really let him have it when he abruptly turned and came to her. Next thing she knew she was enveloped in the scent of gardenias as he wrapped his arms around her, pulled her as close as he could these days, and held her.

"You know what a coward I am," he said softly. "It's bad enough imagining what a djinn could do to _me._I can't even bear to think about what might happen to the two of you. I need you to be safe. Can't you understand that, cariad?"

Then he tilted her face up and kissed her soundly. Bother him for being honest _and_ tender, when he _knew_ how sentimental she was right now! She knew he was doing it just to get his way. She wrapped her arms around his neck and allowed herself to enjoy it anyway. Then she pulled herself together.

"Of course I understand," she said. Seeing the relief in his face, she put her hands on her hips, adding firmly, "but that doesn't mean that you don't need all the help you can get. If you're staying, I'm staying."

"You—" Howl sputtered. Then he started cursing in Welsh again. Ignoring him, Sophie gathered up an armful of books and waddled back down the stairs to add a few spells of her own.

They continued that way the rest of the afternoon, with small periods of peace in which all three worked furiously interspersed with arguments that rapidly grew in volume and intensity. At one point Calcifer even had the nerve to attempt a transport spell on her. In retaliation, Sophie had advanced on him with a bucket of water she had pointedly ordered not to miss her target.

Now, with the sun setting and the castle as well-reinforced as they could manage, Sophie and Howl stood nose to nose, flat out shouting.

"Infernal stubborn woman, always having to be right in the middle of everything—"

"You need me! I'll stay out of the way. I'll hide. I know I can do something— "

"You'll stop nosing and get out of here, that's what you'll do! I need your help like I need white hair and wrinkles!"

"Oh, really? And just who was it that set up those wards? Who came up with the modification on the sealant spell? Without me, you'd still be—"

"Go!" Howl shouted.

"Not without you!"

They were silenced when Calcifer flared hugely, roaring like burning oil.

"IT'S HERE!"

Suddenly everything began to shake. The castle walls blurred as some enormous force wrestled with the wards.

A wind came up from nowhere. The front door banged open and shut crazily. Through it Sophie could see a howling storm, darkening the mansion lawn.

Glass shattered. Dishes and jars tumbled from the cupboards. Morgan was kicking frantically. She struggled to stay upright as the floor jerked and rolled beneath her.

Howl managed to grab her and pull her under the table.

"ARE THE WARDS HOLDING?" Howl bellowed over the din. His voice was oddly distorted, bending around her like the walls.

Calcifer didn't answer. He was bright blue, swelling to fill the room as he fought to hold the defenses. It was unbearably hot.

Howl was holding her, speaking a jumble of protective spells and words of power. Sophie added her strength to his as they huddled, clinging together and speaking every defensive charm they had ever known.

A bottle fell from the top of the table, bursting into flames as its contents escaped, setting Sophie's skirts on fire. She screamed, frantically spelling the fire out as she beat at her skirts with one hand. The other was clasped in Howl's, squeezing painfully.

THE WARDS ARE FAILING! WE'RE LOSING IT!" Calcifer, now smoking heavily, shrank to practically nothing.

Over the roar, Sophie heard Howl yelling hoarsely at Calcifer to get out while he could.

"I can't leave now!"

"Get out of here, you old fraud! Save yourself! This thing's stronger than I imagined!" As he clung to Sophie she could feel an enormous force tugging at him, trying to drag him away. "It wants me too!" Howl shouted. "Get out before it notices you!"

The smoke was so thick that Sophie could no longer see the room. She was coughing as Howl turned and looked longingly into her face. He kissed her hard and told her not to do anything stupid. Then he began quickly muttering what she finally recognized as the cat spell. There was an ominous groan in the eaves of the castle. Howl spoke even faster. She felt herself getting smaller and smaller. Then Howl's silk covered legs crawled out from under the table. She wobbled out and anxiously wound herself around his feet. Oh no, she mewed in a tiny voice, don't pretend to be brave now—

There was a tremendous CRACK! A great booming voice was speaking curses in a language she did not know Abruptly, the roof was gone. Sophie yowled in terror as she suddenly found herself flying through the air. Frantically she looked all around for a glimpse of Howl or the castle or even the hill it had been on, but everything had vanished. She was hurtling toward the earth at a tremendous speed. Sophie closed her eyes tightly as she fell, helpless, through the dark.


	5. Chapter 5

Yep, been a year. No excuse, except I have discovered that my writer's block correlates strongly with having a boyfriend. Now, he was a nice fellow and all, but aren't you glad to have me back? ;)

Unbeta'd, cos I lost Iolanthe. I miss her. I imagine it will be messed with again.

* * *

A gray field mouse basked in the lingering warmth of the setting sun, nibbling absently on a pine nut. Its ears flicked at a tiny snapping sound in the tall grass, and without hesitation it jumped to flee. A dark blur tore through the grass and pounced, catching and dispatching dinner with deadly grace. The thin, ragged black cat carefully picked up the mouse in its teeth and slinked back into the growing shadows, making for a pile of rocks which marked a small hole in the mountain face.

A part of Sophie was still repulsed by catching and eating her meals raw. Her practical side prevailed, after a failed experiment in eating grass and three frightening days of hunger waiting for her instincts to sharpen enough to hunt. Time spent as an animal, under Howl's guidance, had taught her that she'd develop a feline part of her mind that would take over whenever necessary.

And it was a good thing, Sophie thought as she padded into the small cave she had marked with scent and spells as hers, because she needed all of the help she could get. She swallowed her meal in a few quick gulps and paced nervously around the nest she had made in a small depression in the cave floor. Made of collected grass and her own fur, it _seemed_ like it would be sufficient.

"You will have to be." she told it in her tiny, mewling voice, whisking her tail sharply like a wand. "Be _warm_."

Sophie had been traveling for six days, as soon as she'd finally gotten her bearings and realized she was somewhere along the northern border of Ingary. Since then she had traveled steadily toward Kingsbury, been nearly eaten twice, and roundly cursed Howl for the addition to the cat spell that kept her from reversing it herself. Now she was in even more trouble.

Morgan had informed her in no uncertain terms that he was ready to arrive, just as she had told Howl he would. All of Sophie's magic and protests that he was supposed to be late, not early, swayed him not at all. There had been short, erratic pains since the night before that were slowly shifting into something more regular. Another came now, and she tensed, hissing in protest.

"It's not supposed to be this way!" she squeaked indignantly to the rising half moon peering into the mouth of the cave.

She had planned to give birth in the moving castle, with Fanny, Lettie, and Mrs. Fairfax there with her. Howl had naturally slithered out of answering any questions about his planned role in the event. A room had been added upstairs, joined to their bedroom by an arched doorway and painted a cheerful yellow that very nearly matched Howl's hair. Everything was ready and waiting for a baby to arrive.

Everything was ready in the _castle_. Assuming the castle even still existed. Sophie arched her back miserably, dug her claws into the packed dirt floor, and tried for the thousandth time to transform and transport herself home. She hadn't been scared at all when she knew there were experienced people around to help. Now everything she had read and discussed with Fanny so sensibly had left her head. She was panicking.

_Damn that wretched Djinn! _she raged to herself,_ When I get back, I'll teach him to make off with peoples' homes! Who does he think he is? Of all the times…_

The pain eased, and one piece of advice came back to her. No matter what, she was supposed to walk, for as long as she could. Sophie straightened and, tail bristling with grim determination, began the first circuit around her cave.

She kept it up through the night, alternating pacing with lying on her side, panting, as the pains grew stronger and longer. Every attempt to talk them away went awry. Sophie fought to stay silent and hidden from night predators, taking out her feelings on the moss covered cave walls. Still, a low yowl of despair escaped her when she staggered outside to drink. The first glimmers of the rising sun sparkled off the wet grass. Had she been at this all night—two nights now? Was it supposed to take this long? She couldn't remember. All Sophie could remember was exhaustion, and thirst, and loneliness, and she didn't even know where the one person she wanted most in the world _was_, or even if—

The strongest pain yet wracked her then, and she didn't even try to restrain her screech of pain and despair as she fled back inside.

The dawn of the cloudless day marked the end of rational thought for Sophie. She no longer suppressed her groans. They grew into the bone chilling screams of an animal in agony. Continuous pain wracked her back and stabbed through her legs. Still she walked. Hours crept by, impossibly slow. She cried out mindlessly for Fanny and Lettie. She begged Howl to appear, and called him every name she could think of. The sun was past its zenith when Sophie discovered that she couldn't feel Morgan. Her magical senses were completely gone. Sophie refused to consider what it could mean. Terrified, pushed beyond her limits, she flung herself onto her nest. Hoping the cat knew what to do better than she, she closed her eyes, and buried her conscious self deep inside her mind.

* * *

Sophie looked around. The castle was as tidy as when she'd last seen it, and she wasn't pregnant anymore. She was behind the barrier, then, safely hidden away while her feline instincts figured out what to do. The pain lingered, but farther away; more like she had stubbed her toe than been torn in half. Running a finger over the spotless table, she smiled to herself. Howl would never--

"Appearing in dreams is a tremendous cliché, you know," a voice spoke behind her. Sophie whipped around to see Howl, immaculate in a dark blue velvet suit and leaning on the front door, "I wouldn't do it if there were a better way."

"Liar. Of course you would. It's dramatic. And I'm not dreaming, as you should know." she said, biting her lip to keep it from trembling as she drank in the sight of him. "Are you _not_ my imagination, then?" Howl glanced down at himself with an injured sniff.

"I should say not. If your mind had conjured me, I'd probably be wearing that tired mauve suit. I'm sick of it. Three months old already. This is the one you were working on, remember? Though I do think you should add buttons to the sleeves, like I've--- oof!"

The breath whooshed out of him as Sophie flung herself into his arms, squeezing as hard as she could. The next moments were a blur of frenzied kisses and whispered reassurances. Somehow they ended up in the chair before the empty fireplace, Sophie curled up in Howl's lap, her head tucked under his chin; something they rarely did where they might be seen by nosy fire demons.

"I don't know how long I have, Sophie," he warned, "The spell on me prevents me saying where I am or what form I take," Howl choked on the words a bit, as though even that much information was hard to reveal, "and I'm sure it will catch on to me eventually. This will likely be the only time this works."

"The Djinn then?" she whispered, and felt him nod. "You're somewhere safe?"

"For now." he lifted one hand to comb gently through her loose hair. "Are you? I planned that you should land in Kingsbury, so Suliman could lift the spell and send you to Wales… but you're here. You're still a cat."

Sophie sat up at that. "I was _not_ going to Wales. And something went wrong with the transport spell. I landed…" she hesitated, "near Kingsbury."

Howl lifted a perfectly groomed eyebrow. "How close, exactly?" When Sophie set her jaw stubbornly and remained silent, he gave her hair a light tug. "I may be able to help if you tell me where you are. Come now, Mrs. Will-of-Iron, I'm just as magical in my present situation."

Sophie frowned at him, then winced as a particularly strong wave of discomfort rolled through her. His brow furrowed.

"…Sophie? What makes me think that you're in even more trouble than I am? Given the situation, that would be impressive."

With a heavy sigh, she shifted in his arms and made a small hole in her construct, giving him within seconds her memories since the castle was taken. Then she waited impatiently for him to stop swearing, in both Inglish and Welsh.

"Is that what you had in mind for help?" she asked, pushing off his lap and fisting her hands on her hips. "What do _you_ have to swear about? I'm the one who's done it all. In fact," Sophie peeked through the hole herself, "I am _still_ doing it. It's been two full days now. Morgan's not coming and I don't know why and magic's not working, and for all I know I'm just going to die alone in the wilderness somewhere, and this entire mess is YOUR FAULT, Howl Jenkins!" Her voice rose until she breathlessly shrieked the last at him, glad to be angry instead of terrified.

Glaring, Howl rose to answer her, and froze when he briefly flickered out of existence. She stared at him in alarm.

"The spell has noticed something's amiss. It's working on reigning me in. There's still some time yet. I tricked it thoroughly." he assured her, "In the meantime, let's see what we can do for your… problem." He reached out to tilt her face up toward his. Sophie stepped back and crossed her arms.

"If you hadn't bound me from ending the cat spell, I could have transported myself home by now." she informed him waspishly. Howl blinked in surprise.

"What do you mean? I never did any such thing. And even if I had, I'd expect you to have talked it off within a day or two, unruly Sophie. Let me see." Sophie resisted again, too ornery now to be practical. She could feel days' worth of fatigue creeping into her cocoon. Howl sighed and spoke through gritted teeth.

"Be sensible, _coch_. I can't fix everything, but let me do what I can. You can cut up a suit or two after I beat this Djinn and escape." she relented and let Howl look into her eyes, feeling the familiar, comforting touch of his magic run along her spine.

"_Can_ you escape? What can you do when you can't tell anyone who you are?"

"I have some ideas," he slithered, then shushed her while he concentrated. After a long moment of silence, he stepped back, releasing her chin to cup her neck and draw her back into his arms.

"Morgan is fine—he'll be here within a few hours. He's absorbed a great deal of your magical energy, which is why you haven't been able to use it as you should. You'll be depleted for weeks, so rest, and do as little magic as you can. Stay in cat form until you find someone to help turn you back. I have a rough idea of where you are now. I'll try to send someone to help you back to Kingsbury. It may take time." he warned.

"That's alright. I'm getting used to mice." Sophie said into his shoulder. He grumbled in Welsh again. "What now? How much time do you have left?" Howl took her hand and led her up the stairs into their bedroom.

"You need to rest before you take over your body again. I've done enough vanishing in front of you for a while. Come on." He tugged her toward the bed. She let him; she could barely keep her eyes open. They climbed in together, Howl chuckling when she insisted on undoing his buttons, so she could curl up against his skin.

"How are you managing, Howl? You're much too much of a coward for this." Sophie informed him, tugging him closer imperiously.

"Quiet now, Mrs. Nose. You know very well that I can only be brave while I pretend it's not happening. You'll spoil the illusion, and then I'll be doomed." his words were sharp, but his voice soft as he twined his fingers in her hair again. The motion lulled her, but Sophie fought her way back from sleep for one moment more.

"You be careful. Find your way home. Promise me, or else..." she couldn't come up with a proper threat. "Promise me." she said again.

Howl leaned down and kissed her one more time, slowly and thoroughly, before tucking her against his chest. "If I can't, nobody could _cariad_. We'll both… all… get home eventually. Sleep now."

"Vain man. You're horrible." she said muzzily, her exhaustion finally overcoming her. Her eyes slammed shut.

As she dozed, Sophie dimly registered the castle evaporating around her, and Howl with it. She floated, cradled by darkness. A tremendous pressure grew out of the void. It unfurled inside her, around her. She resisted its pull. Relentless, it rose up, peaking in a crushing, white hot burst of power. Breathless, unable to move, Sophie fought against its attempt to drag her further under. Though it felt like eternity, only seconds had passed when it released her. The relief was instant, palpable. It was gone as quickly as it came. When she was certain it wouldn't return, she allowed her mind to drift again, spent.

* * *

Sophie cracked one eye open cautiously and peered outside. Morning again. It had been at least a day and a night. She slowly assessed herself from head to tail. Thirsty, sore, and ravenous, yes. Excruciating pain, no. The cave had been tidied, too, and new grass added to the nest. Her ears finally registered the tiny mewling voice beside her. Sophie looked down to see what looked like a squirming black rat, wriggling blindly to her side to nurse. From what she knew of kittens, she estimated that it had been born some hours before.

"Hello Morgan. You've given me a great deal of trouble, you know." she mewed at him softly, "Just like your father, again. Let's hope you'll be just a little bit less concerned with your hair."

Her feline side suggested that he needed a bath, and urged her to scrub him with her tongue. As she did, Sophie studied the little mite, and felt her magic, weak and feeble still, recognize his. Blind, deaf, and furry as he was, this was her baby. Everything else could wait for a moment. Her sense of contentment welled up inside her until it poured out in a satisfied, slightly squeaky purr.

After that, there was enough for Sophie to do that she could waste little time worrying. She couldn't travel until Morgan could walk, so her days were filled with bathing and cuddling him, and hunting as often as she could. Having a newborn kitten to feed seemed to require more energy than being pregnant had, and Sophie was always ravenously hungry. Her ribs were beginning to show, and her magic was not recharging as it should. She hoped nothing truly disastrous happened; if it required more power than it took to grow impossibly large and fierce, she was in trouble.

She was also keeping a look out for Howl's "help." She did her best not to worry, since she'd decided he was a part of a game the Djinn was playing and would not be hurt. It was just a matter of escaping his enchanted form, and getting back to Ingary… assuming he was in this world at all.

Sophie was looking so hard for a miracle that she almost missed it when it appeared, in the form of a long haired, bedraggled man that startled her from sleep and almost lost an eye for his trouble. It wasn't until the soldier fled, gasping, down the slope that Sophie shrank back to normal size and thought it over. Few travelers came this way, and even fewer went in the direction of the traveler--the _same way she needed to go._ At the least, he might see she was enchanted and take her to a local hedge-witch. Sophie wanted to follow immediately, but knowing the target they would make, waited patiently for the sun to rise. At the very earliest hint of dawn, she gently lifted Morgan, who struggled and hissed an indignant protest, in her teeth and began to track the man.

The going was even slower than when she had been pregnant and completely lost. Morgan would only tolerate being carried for a mile or two before he squirmed impossibly, demanding to be let down to nurse and walk himself. Since he could barely toddle along, it slowed her greatly. Eventually, Sophie had no choice but to find a safe place to leave him while she followed the traveler alone.

It was dusk when she found the pigtailed Strangian soldier and his companion. She studied them critically, well concealed by the giant leaves covering the tree branch. The soldier looked like a scoundrel, and the other was obviously from very far away. His clothes and accent were unfamiliar to her. He also spoke with all the flowery language and affectations Sophie hated in the King's messengers, only worse. But none of that mattered, she thought with a determined flick of an ear; they were going the right way. And besides that, there was something about their camp that seemed very appealing to her. She couldn't quite put her paw on it, but despite the disreputable appearance of the travelers, she knew that Morgan would be safe among them.

Sophie climbed out of the tree, a silent black shadow, and sped back the way she came. If she hurried, she and Morgan could be back at the camp site by midnight. One way or another, they _would_ get to Kingsbury.

* * *

Yes kids, I am a jerk and Sophie was in labor for roughly 48 hours. Why? Because *stands on soapbox* I am tired of seeing in fics and novels and on tv that childbirth goes as first contraction--water breaks-- OMG HOSPITAL-- baby has come in an hour. That happens sometimes, but not usually. Either write about what you know, or do absurd amounts of research. Oh, and while I'm at it, there's nothing wrong with breastfeeding either. Cats do it, and so do the Inglish. ;)

Also, this was very feelings-y. As an engineer, I generally dislike feelings, which is why I like Sophie. However, her little brush off of Lettie ("oh, I just fed him and washed him a lot... mice are delicious!") was pure nonsense. There is no way that spending 5-6 weeks (yes, that long... I counted.) alone in the woods, giving birth, and not knowing if your husband is alive is NOT traumatic. So... there it is. And Howl insisted that he WOULD appear. So there he is. ;)

I have one more chapter planned, but if it takes me another year you should all be satisfied, cos we've met up with CiTA. Let me know what you think!


	6. Chapter 6

Nope, don't adjust your screen, folks. It's real. And it's the LAST ONE. Six years later, this story is FINISHED. Win!

Now bear with me a minute, cos it seems we all need to have a talk about cats and continuity, since I've been called out on it, and one of these points is important to understand for this story. Circle time kids, gather round.

I have heard objections on two points. The first is that cats have a short, complication free labor that appears to be pretty easy. I'll buy that, but there is one important fact in play: Sophie is human. Yep, right now she has feline physiology. And once she gave over to her feline mind, Morgan came pretty quickly. But she is a human having her first baby, and it was long and awful no matter what kind of animal pajamas she was wearing.

Secondly, I hear that there is no way that Morgan is walking, because kittens walk at more than a month old. I have never owned a cat myself, so I had to look this up before I even starting writing this fic at all, because I decided that Morgan's stage of development was a good indicator for how long Sophie had been out there. In the story, kitten-Morgan _could_ walk. The reason that he has reached the milestones of a nearly six week old kitten is because _he has been out there for six weeks._ Add one week before his birth and another week of traveling with Abdullah and co., and Sophie and Howl spent two months apart and ensorcelled. That's why I wrote this. It's a big deal, and since this series is written for not-adults, DWJ couldn't cover it. So I did.

Enough blabbing. Let's get on to the good stuff.

* * *

If she hadn't had so much experience with such matters recently, Sophie might have thought it was magic.

One minute, she was crammed into a corner with her freshly disenchanted husband, the castle bursting with royalty from around the world, the air filled with chatter and confusion. The next, Howl was borne out on the current of departing princesses, bellowing that he'd be back after he'd dealt with the King. Then all was silent. Sophie stood in the middle of a suddenly empty room, fumbling Morgan in human arms that still felt long and clumsy, and stared numbly into space. The relief of having everything right again was nearly too much to bear. She couldn't even bring herself to be upset with the dust that had accumulated in the corners.

By the time Sophie realized that Calcifer had been fizzing and spitting at her for the past ten minutes, he had given up and opened the mansion door himself. Fanny and Mrs. Fairfax came bustling in, laden with baskets of cold meat and bread and cheese. When they saw Sophie they dropped everything and ran to throw their arms around her.

"Sophie!" Fanny clutched her tightly while Mrs. Fairfax cooed over the baby, "We've been so worried! Your poor apprentices turn up at the door babbling about Jinns or somesuch thing, and the next we know the two of you have vanished for months! I've been in such a state. Mr. Smith managed things for me admirably well, of course; with so many witches in the family he's learned to take these things in stride. If it weren't for Lettie needing me so—the shock put her in bed for two weeks, poor dear—"

"Mrrf," Sophie responded eloquently from her place against the shoulder of Fanny's best green silk summer gown. The words flowed over her brain like water, and she couldn't seem to make herself really listen.

"…But never you mind, love, because we've come and we'llhelp set things to rights. Howl sent us a message, you know. We're going to stay right here with you until he gets back, and Annabel I am _sure _it is my turn to hold that baby." Much as he had as a kitten, Morgan mewled indignantly as he was handed off to yet another set of arms. Mrs. Fairfax gave him one last pat and then turned to Sophie. Her brow furrowed.

"Good heavens Sophie, have you eaten today? You look ill." She reached up and patted Sophie's cheek anxiously. "And thin. Perhaps I should ask if you've eaten at all! I shouldn't wonder, running about ensorcelled with who knows what sort of people. You'll have a bit of my honey tonic and a bath, that will put some color in your face, and then you can eat something. Honey does have some wondrous healing properties, you know. The baby—a boy isn't it? He's lovely—will be just fine with us until you're done. Now, now, not a word of protest, dear. You can't feed him if you aren't eating well yourself. Here you are, just a swallow. Now go on, and the two of us will make up a nice supper for you. Then we'll deal with this mess. The _cobwebs_, Fanny, did you _see_?"

During all this Mrs. Fairfax had whipped out a glass bottle, tipped something that tasted of honey, brandy, and magic down Sophie's throat, and produced an apron, with which she shooed Sophie into the bathroom.

Sophie shut the door behind her, started the bath running, and began to unbutton the dress Lettie had lent her. Even hooked as tightly as it would go, the dress hung on her like a sack. As the gauzy yellow folds slid silently into a pool at her feet, Sophie tried not to look at herself. But in a room filled with mirrors it was unavoidable. Now Sophie understood why Lettie had burst into tears all over again while the two of them were dressing to race off to the inn—and why Howl, holding her again for the first time in months, had quickly, but not quickly enough, hidden his shock and dismay.

Her hair, long since tumbled from the bun Lettie had shaped for her in Kingsbury, softened but could not hide the increased sharpness to her jaw, the slightly more prominent cheekbones, the way her eyes loomed larger in her face. The strain of feeding a ravenous child while half-starved herself was evident in her jutting collarbones and ribs. Her body was covered with the bruises she had accumulated on her adventures, now purple and sickly yellow. She looked...fragile.

Scowling, she whirled away from her reflection, scraping the loose hair off her face and climbing into the steaming water in one fluid motion. She steadfastly looked down until the heat fogged over every mirror in the room.

An hour later, having emerged in a nightdress and dressing gown, Sophie did have to admit that between the bath and three ham sandwiches, she felt properly human again. Fanny and Mrs. Fairfax were kind in their bustling, chattering way, as they made the main room sparkle. They insisted that Sophie didn't need to do a thing, so she sat in the chair by the grate and did her best not to bungle up feeding Morgan. It took a long time and a lot of well meant, largely unhelpful advice before she got it right.

"Bother!" she whispered to him, stroking the fat little hand curled reflexively around her finger, "We were much better at this when you had paws and I didn't have buttons." After he ate, Fanny talked her through the aftermath, which seemed unnecessarily foul after his tidiness as a kitten. Then Morgan fussed for a further half hour, while Sophie learned to walk with a soothing sway to her step. When she sat back down again, the straight-backed chair had become a thickly-cushioned rocker thanks to Mrs. Fairfax.

The spitting noise that was Calcifer's version of clearing a throat made her look up in surprise. Though he had watched the proceedings with interest, the fire demon had been quiet for most of the evening, as he usually was in Fanny's presence.

"Suliman's sent a message," he crackled. "Your sister's having _her _baby now. He's asking for your stepmother."

"Well, that can't be right." Mrs. Fairfax said, briskly dusting off her apron."Lettie has another month to go. Tell Ben it's false labor. She'll be all right."

"He said something about broken water… breaking water is _hard_, I should know. At any rate, she shouted at the King until they were both purple, and she was still going when this happened. Ben says it's real and it's all the King's fault and he needs you." In an undertone, Calcifer added to Sophie, "Can't you Hatters produce offspring at a convenient time?"

Sophie sighed—she was beginning to wonder the same thing—and rose carefully, sliding Morgan to her shoulder in a motion that was almost starting to feel natural. Fanny waved her sharply back into her seat.

"No, I have to go," Sophie protested, "I promised Lettie I would be there! I'll just get dressed, and—"

"Nonsense," Fanny retorted. "Howl wanted you to rest, and I certainly think you deserve a quiet night at home. Lettie will be just fine with Annabel and me there. Sophie, for heaven's sake!" She bustled over to block the stairwell just as Sophie was moving purposefully toward it. "You can come in the morning, after you've had a decent night's sleep." She paused, then added firmly, "Don't you think your husband might like to see you tonight?"

"I have to go," Sophie repeated, this time with a small sigh. She could hear the chair calling her back to its inviting depths. She was exhausted, she knew she didn't need to go, she could admit to herself that she didn't even _want_ to go. And yet…

"Fanny's exactly right, dear. We'll send for you in the morning. There will still plenty to do; of that you may be sure." Mrs. Fairfax smiled reassuringly as she repacked their basket. Fanny, in the meantime, had guided Sophie right back to her chair and eased her back into it without Sophie even realizing they were moving.

"It's all right, Sophie, Fanny said, leaning over her to brush a stray wisp of hair from her face. "I'm sure Lettie wants you to rest, too. We'll take fine care of her." Sophie hadn't expected to see the understanding that shone in Fanny's eyes. "She won't be left alone, not even for a minute. Do you need anything before we go?" Sophie shook her head and busied herself with settling Morgan just so, to give herself time to swallow the lump in her throat.

She waited until the ladies had called out cheerful goodbyes and left through the Kingsbury door. Then she looked down at Calcifer and gave him a watery smile.

"Well, come on," she said. You've been very patient."

"As long as you don't drip on me." The fire demon retorted, vaulting from the grate and hovering carefully over her shoulder. Morgan turned his head toward the light and warmth, blinking and waving his clenched fists jerkily. After a moment, Calcifer let out his hissing chuckle.

"He wants to know if I'll turn him back into a kitten. And he thinks Fanny's perfume is too strong."

"He told you that?"

"Not in so many words." Calcifer began to weave slow patterns over Morgan's head, while the baby tried to follow him with his eyes. "He's young still, so he remembers the language of the world he came from. It's a lot like what the stars speak. He'll forget it as he grows up. Yikes!" He jerked back in a streak of blue, dodging a particularly emphatic fist-wave. "Did you feel that? Howl was right. Chip off the old block. Good luck when he learns to focus all that power. I'm moving out at the first hint of slime."

"Wonderful," Sophie snorted. "And if you think that was strong, try feeling it from the inside."

"Oh, and by the way," Calcifer replied, still circling Morgan's head but at a safer distance this time, "Howl said to tell you he'd be home soon, and not to wait up for him."

Sophie snorted again. "If he thinks I'm not going to wait up for him then he's been brain-damaged by that idiotic djinn's spell." Yawning, she added, "But I suppose I can wait for him upstairs. I need to try to get Morgan to sleep anyway."

Morgan chose that moment to arch his back, angrily screwing up his face and uttering a whining, kittenish noise. Something about that impatient little mewing clicked in Sophie's mind.

"He's hungry again," she and Calcifer both said at once.

The fire demon's eyebrows furrowed. "I thought you couldn't understand him."

"I can't."

"If you say so," Calcifer said skeptically, drifting back into his grate.

Hoisting Morgan against her shoulder again, Sophie managed to struggle up the stairs without dropping him. She even managed to hold him one-handed long enough to jiggle open the bedroom door. Then, with only the moonlight streaming through the window to guide her, she found her way to her side of the bed and sank gratefully into its familiar jumble of pillows and quilts.

By now, Morgan's hungry mews had turned into wails.

"Oh, come _on_, buttons!" Sophie pleaded, struggling one-handed with her robe. "Please don't be difficult… "

Obligingly, two buttons undid themselves. A third slid halfway out its hole. The rest simply wriggled a bit before going still.

"Please?" she tried again, in a small voice. This time she got no response at all. After helping Abdullah earlier, even this simple, intuitive bit of magic was too much for her. She still hadn't recovered properly.

In the meantime, Morgan's cries had grown to a full-blown caterwauling. For the third time that day, Sophie nearly burst into tears. She slid to the floor and very carefully laid a thrashing Morgan flat on the bed. She surrounded him with pillows so that he couldn't roll, turned around, and dropped her head into her hands. She stood that way for a long minute before acting. Sophie jerked at the sash, tore off the robe, and flung it across the room. Then she unbuttoned her nightgown with trembling hands, pulling so hard she ripped a button off. Yanking the thing over her head, Sophie threw that, too, breathless with frustration.

"And I...I'm not picking you up tonight!" she told them fiercely. "Maybe not tomorrow, either! You can just lie there and wrinkle forever, for all I care!"

Morgan was now red-faced and shrieking. She hurled herself onto the bed and pulled him to her. Fortunately, things came together more quickly this time, and he soon quieted. Sophie scrubbed at her eyes with her free hand and then propped her chin on it, watching him. Slowly, she began to calm again. As had so often happened when they were cats, they both grew drowsy as he nursed.

Then she was wide awake. From downstairs, she had heard the bathroom door close.

"If your father takes two hours in there tonight, bespelled for months or not, I'll cut up every suit he has," she told Morgan softly. "And you know, I don't understand what everyone keeps saying about you looking like us; to me you just look like a baby. Well, your hair is dark, like his, but Annabel says it's probably all going to fall out anyway. Wouldn't he have a tantrum! Do you think you could do that for me?" Sophie laughed. Morgan didn't give much of an answer either way.

To his credit, Howl appeared in one hour, in just his trousers and shirtsleeves. By then Sophie had gotten Morgan changed and in his cradle and was sitting propped on some pillows, fighting to stay awake.

Howl was pale, his hair not quite perfect, and there was a distinct slump to his shoulders. Though he raised an eyebrow at her lack of attire, he made none of the remarks he normally did when he walked in on her less than fully dressed. He looked just as exhausted as she was. She hopped off the bed and began to cross the room, but was stopped dead by his expression. There was a funny tightening around his mouth as he slowly surveyed her head to toe, his eyes unreadable. There was a long, awkward pause.

"What?" Sophie snapped, more to break the silence than anything else. "Nothing you haven't seen before." Howl shook his head briefly and closed the rest of the distance between them.

"I was considering confining you to bed and feeding you butter wrapped in bacon until you don't look like I'm starving you." He rested his fingertips on her bare shoulder, gently urging her to turn. He whistled. "What were you _doing_ out there? Playing rugby with the other woodland creatures?"

Sophie looked over her shoulder. Howl was studying a particularly vivid purple bruise on her hip, the size of his palm.

"I think that one was from mistiming a jump and slamming into a tree," she informed him. "My dinner didn't just sit around and wait for me to eat it, Howl. I probably have a bruise for every meal I had."

"And a few you didn't, I think." he added wryly. Suddenly something was in his hand, glinting silver in the moonlight: a tin of healing salve she and Lettie had created together, conjured from the workbench; it was gently scented with lavender and especially effective on mild cuts and bruises.

"Do you know how much I miss being able to do that?" Sophie sighed, flopping face-down onto the bed and demolishing the mountain of pillows she'd been propped up on. Howl slid up after her, and pulled her to him_. _She lay silent, feeling the reassuring thump of his heartbeat against her back. More than magic, than hot water, than anything in the world, she had missed this…

From the nursery came a fretful whimpering. Sophie groaned, hiding her face in her hands. "He's not hungry," she said. "He can't be!"

Howl shrugged. "I'll get him then. Close your eyes for a bit."

Sophie did so obligingly as he went to the archway, but she couldn't help cracking them open to watch as he scooped Morgan up with an ease that she envied. Howl walked him to the window and stood there, swaying a little, speaking in words too quiet for Sophie to hear without asking the curtains for help. Morgan hiccupped, and Howl hiked him up, tucking his head under his chin, rubbing his back soothingly. Something about the sight made her tear up. Again. Damnation!

Morgan was soon quieter than he had been since the moment he was born. Howl held him for a bit longer anyway, then laid him carefully in his crib and came tiptoeing back to bed. Quickly Sophie squinched her eyes shut.

"You're a horrendous pretend sleeper, Mrs. Nose," Howl said in a low voice, taking advantage of her ruse by attacking her notoriously ticklish feet. Sophie squealed and tried to get away, almost kicking him in the face. He shushed her, toeing off his boots and taking up the salve again before clambering up beside her and urging her onto her stomach.

"He should sleep till dawn, I think," he went on, applying the soothing balm to the tiny scrapes and bruises peppering the backs of her legs. "And now that we're home again, we can make you something to get your magic back into balance. It doesn't seem to be resolving on its own."

Sophie hummed in lazy agreement. Low-grade aches, which she'd carried so long she hardly noticed them, were slowly replaced with tingling warmth as Howl worked methodically up her back. His hair occasionally brushed her skin when he leaned down to kiss an especially ugly mark, sending pleasant shocks up her spine. After he'd soothed away the last, a yellowing splotch behind her ear that had prompted him to check her for a concussion, he gently set the salve on the table by the bed, then turned back to Sophie.

Without prompting, Sophie turned over, intending to pull him down to her.

But he held back. That guarded look was still there. Sophie thought she could see what was behind it, but she didn't understand what she saw. Sadness, worry, relief, yes; but… guilt? It made no sense. She looked up at him quizzically.

Howl smiled a lopsided smile, knowing he was caught. "I miscalculated," he said, tracing her ribs. "You should have been in Kingsbury months ago." "When we first caught up with you, I thought you were fine until I saw you changed back… And honestly, cariad—"

Sophie braced herself. Honesty and endearments in one breath were not good.

"You look _awful_," he said miserably. "I botched the whole thing. I could have lost you both."

Sophie waited for the quip she was sure would follow. When it didn't come, she realized that she wasn't the only one with feelings that would need dealing with.

"Well, you didn't." she said tartly. "And anyway, it's half my fault for refusing to leave. I'll be good as new in a few weeks. And it could have been worse—at least I wasn't a ninety year old cat."

Howl snorted, as she'd hoped he would.

But you _will_ need to run out and get some bacon in the morning," she added severely. "Several dozen pastries would be nice, too. But nothing with cream. I'm _sick_ of cream."

This time, a laugh. A small one, but enough. The danger was past.

"But for now," Sophie continued more gently, reaching up to smooth blond hair out of his eyes, "We're home, and we're safe, and by some miracle, the baby is sleeping. Do you think you might do something about it, maybe before I'm past my prime a second time?" Her fingers flicked open the top button of his soft linen shirt.

Howl laughed again and rolled to his side, taking her with him. "Well, to be truthful," he whispered mischievously, "he _may_ be sleeping so soundly thanks to my little variation on the Sleeping Beauty spell."

"Howl!" Sophie hissed, trying to sit up.

He pulled her back down and kissed her once, twice, loosening her braid. "He's safe and sound asleep, Sophie." He smiled as only Howl could smile and pulled her closer. "And we've only got till dawn," he said. "That's the variation."

And she knew then that it would be all right.

"Now, as for what I might do about _you—"_ he said, and with a casual wave of his hand the drapes around the bed closed silently. "I plan to make much of time."

* * *

Hopefully I managed to make a realistic reconciliation that was in character despite being feelings-y. We'll see, I guess. There was a teeny, tiny nod to Robert Herrick's Poem "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" in there. I don't own him, either.

And let this be a lesson to you all! Never give up! Ancient stories CAN be finished.

Thanks, again, to Iolanthe, without whom this either wouldn't have happened, or would have happened badly.


End file.
